Perchance to Wake
by agrader
Summary: After a wild dream, Barry Lockeridge awakens to a series of surprising coincidences. Story Notes: "I will pour out my spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams. You're young men will see visions." (Joel Chapter 2 verse 28; New International Version Bible).
1. A Tale of Two Cookies

Barry, Mark, Dan and Fitzhugh were on the run from a whole squad of SID officers, who had narrowed their base camp down to being somewhere in the forest. After two years in the Land of the Giants, they had lost all their anonymity and many of their secrets, including the ability to come and go from the giant city undetected.

"I hope Steve and the girls are alright," panted Mark.

"The giants don't even know where they are," said Fitzhugh, "It's we who'll be done for if the SID men look under these shrubs."

"This is your Captain speaking. Sub orbital flight 612 is just landing at London Airport," said Steve.

"Steve," thought Barry, "He's not even with us. How could he say that? The others don't even seem to have heard him."

Once again he heard Steve's voice making the same announcement. Then he felt a hand stroking his forehead.

"It's time to see if your cousins got your letter, sleepyhead," said Betty.

Barry suddenly woke up to find that he was sitting in the passenger seats with the other four passengers in the Spindrift. Betty was smiling down at him, stroking his hair to awaken him.

"You slept for almost the entire journey," she said.

"Even through the big storm?" asked Barry, recalling what it was like when they had first approached the space warp.

Back on that day (1983, September), only the crew had seen the view from the cockpit window, which had later been described to an initially incredulous Mark Wilson. The engineer had made some glib remark about fairytales.

"There wasn't any storm," said Betty, "You must have been dreaming. Come on. Let's go to the terminal and see if they're waiting for you."

As Barry walked with Betty to the airport terminal, he recalled what had seemed like two years of adventures in a Land of Giant human beings much like himself only so big that he was the size of one of their fingers. He had learned to climb ropes and abseil, swing a matchstick with a razor blade fastened to it (as though it were an axe), and to run and hide whenever necessary. All of the passengers had been in the dreams, as well as the crew.

He had vague recollections of a dark haired woman seen arguing with the Captain and the Co-Pilot just near the VIP lounge, just before he'd been introduced to the others and led onto the ship. She'd been wearing a dark brown jumper, a creamy short skirt, black stockings, a light brown belt and an orange-brown vest. Barry had no idea who that woman had been. He hadn't seen her in the dreams, which had gone on for hours, changing scenes at a very fast pace.

Betty and Barry looked around, but could find no sign of his cousins. Maybe they had moved before he'd sent the letter explaining how he'd just become an orphan.

"Honey, I'm sorry," said Betty, kneeling down and hugging him, "But you can still come home to Los Angeles with me on the next flight back if you like. I told you you'd never be an orphan again."

"Thank you Miss Hamilton," said Barry, remembering that he'd only gotten familiar enough to call her Betty in the dreams.

"You can call me Betty, if you like," she said.

"Will Captain Burton and Mr Ericcson be taking us back?" asked Barry.

"Yes, they're the only ones who fly Spindrift at the moment. I'll have you booked on as family of mine," said Betty.

When they returned to America, Betty arranged to adopt Barry, and enrolled him in a public high school. He was one of the youngest students there. His form mistress was also his science teacher, Mrs A. Franzen. Two seats to the left of him, sitting next to the classroom wall was a girl with a startlingly familiar face. He stared at her and thought she looked identical to Ackman's granddaughter!

Ackman had been one of the first giants that the Spindrift team had met in Barry's dreams. He had conscripted them all to be residents of his model town, which happened to be scaled to their size. His granddaughter had been highly resentful of the attention that Ackman had paid to the earthlings, and unleashed a torrent of near homicidal cruelty on them in his absence.

The girl in the classroom now noticed him staring at her. She checked that Mrs Franzen was still writing on the blackboard with her back to the class, and that the rest of the class were concentrating on the blackboard. Then the girl stuck her tongue out at Barry in scorn.

"That's just what the giant girl did!" thought Barry, "I wonder if this girl is as cruel in real life. What would she do if she was a giant? I couldn't ask her. She'd never believe me about the dreams."

During lunch break, a slightly older girl with blond hair came and sat next to Barry on the playground seat and smiled shyly. She looked exactly like the giant camper's daughter who had befriended him and discouraged her father from pointing his friends' direction out to the rangers.

"Would you like a cookie?" she asked, taking one from her lunch box, "I'm Kimberly."

"Thank you. I'm Barry," said Barry shyly, remembering that the giantess had offered him a giant cookie, much to the concern of Captain Burton when Steve had learned of it. Valerie had referred to her as his giant girlfriend in the dream, and she had seemed the sweetest of all the giants that he'd met in those dreams.

He took two dried apricots from his own lunch box, placed one onto the cookie, and offered her the other one. Then he ate the combination of biscuit and apricot and enjoyed the mixture. He'd wanted to do it at home, but Betty didn't stock many biscuits around the house. Kimberly copied his cuisine.

"They're good together," she said, just after swallowing a mouthful of cookie and apricot, "Which way do you go home?"

He told her his train route, and she said that she went in the same direction, just a few suburbs further than Barry, and asked if they could meet on the station and sit in the same carriage together. Barry enjoyed her friendship, but didn't know how to broach the subject of him having dreamed up her giant counterpart first. Kimberly was friendlier, both in real life and in the dreams, it seemed, than the girl who resembled Ackman's granddaughter.

As the weeks went on, one thing that amazed Barry was the extent to which he had recalled the rope skills that he had only learned in a series of dreams (all during his first flight on Spindrift). He had been careful to stay awake during the return flight with Betty, so that he could observe anything unusual that happened to the ship, and to ask Betty to warn Steve of the dreams of a giant warp, if the ship should encounter any turbulence. Yet nothing had happened.

Now Barry had an insatiable craving for abseiling and rock climbing. He bought some equipment on a Sunday morning, and then caught the bus to a small national park that afternoon. He walked through the park and came to a cliff with a cave entrance at the bottom. Remembering the dream use of the giant safety pins as grappling hooks, he tied a real grappling hook to one end of a long rope, threw it high up the cliff at an angle, so that it went around the base of a tree at the edge of the cliff top. It fell to the ground, bringing the rope with it. He had knotted it in several places first, so that it resembled the knots in the giant pieces of string, which had acted as the ropes in his dreams. Now he was able to tie both ends off around a suitably shaped rock structure beside the cave entrance, and begin to climb.

Barry reached the top of the cliff and looked out at the whole park below. There was a picnic table nearby, where a woman and her son were sitting. Other things were going on in various places, and nobody had paid him any attention. He saw a small girl wander into the cave entrance far below him. After a while, the boy at the picnic table left his mother sitting there, and walked off too. There were trees between the picnic table and the cave entrance, so that the mother couldn't see it. From his overview, Barry could see everything, as the boy entered the cave as well.

Barry left them to it and made his descent back down the cliff, and then heard a scream from inside the cave. The boy came out calling, "Mommy!" and then Barry saw the mother come running through the trees. The mother was an exact double of the giantess Mrs Bara whom the Spindrift team had met in the park in his dreams.

"Mommy, Leeda fell down a hole in the cave. The ground opened up!" said the boy.

"Show me where, Teddy!" said the woman.

"Just like what happened to both the giant kids in the dream!" thought Barry, as he quickly followed them into the cave entrance.

The hole was close to the entrance, which let in a bit of sunlight. They could see the top, but not the bottom. Barry took out a penlight torch, which he usually carried in his backpack. He'd not expected to need it for a daytime outdoor rock climb, but now it would be very helpful.

"I'll go down," he said, and clipped the torch to his shirt pocket and turned it on.

Barry secured one end of the rope to a suitable stalagmite in the cave, and dropped the rest down beside the fallen girl.

"Are you hurt?" called the woman.

"No. It's squishy!" called the girl.

Barry climbed down the rope and comforted Leeda, and then got her into a piggy back position, advising her to hold on, while he climbed back up the hole. The woman hugged her daughter and led them out of the cave.

"Thank you so much," said the woman, kissing Barry's cheek, "Their father and I are divorced. I don't know what I would have done without you. We'd better get that cave looked at and closed off by the park rangers."

"I'm meeting normal sized versions of the people in my dreams," thought Barry.


	2. Rd to Small is paved with good detention

The following Sunday, he went to buy a new battery for his penlight torch, as his adventure in the cave had drained it to the point of the light fading when he was near the top of the hole with Leeda. He took it into the shop and showed the torch to the shop assistant, and asked for the correct battery. When he'd finished, he saw another customer, an adult man, asking the shop assistant for a battery for his camera. The man was an exact double of the giant photographer who had murdered his model in fit of temper, when she had struggled against his attempts to kiss her in the giant park in Barry's dreams!

"He could be heading for the same incident in the park across from the department store entrance now!" thought Barry, "If I'm right, then the lady will be there too!"

He ran out of the store, while the shop assistant was still examining the camera. Barry reached the park and saw the same woman standing waiting.

"You have to get away from here," said Barry, "Your photographer will try to kiss you and then kill you, if you meet him today."

"That's a bit far fetched, young man," said the model.

She was wearing the same adorable green dress that the giant model had worn in the dream.

"It's true!" said Barry, thinking he had to tell her of his dreams this time, "I dreamed it, and the man and the lady looked just like you and the photographer I just saw in the shop … except you were both giants. You died!"

"Giants! Now I know you're just being silly," she said, "You'd better run along and play. He's coming now, and he won't take kindly to such ridiculous accusations."

Barry saw the man approaching, and could only walk away in frustration and fear for the lady's safety. He made a show of leaving, and then quickly doubled back and followed them. He recalled that the giant lady had died from falling in such a way that her head struck a rock on the ground, in the dream. He wondered if he could at least knock the man out from behind in a similar way. He found a rock on the side of the path, and continued to follow the two adults. Hiding behind some bushes, he looked out and saw the man taking photographs of the model in various poses. Then the scene began to play out the same way it had done in his dreams.

Barry knew he had only seconds to act. He tiptoed out behind the man, as soon as he saw the woman struggle. He reached up and swung the rock at the back of the man's neck. The man passed out and fell to the ground. Barry checked that he still had a pulse.

"Now do you believe me? We have to run," said Barry.

They found a policeman and brought him into the park and awoke the photographer. The man tried to deny the accusations that the model named Linda had brought against him. However, with Barry as a witness, the lady had a case. The man was arrested and charged with assault.

"It could have been murder!" said Linda, as she bought Barry and herself each an ice block and sat with him in the park, "How did you dream that?"

"You're the first person I could really tell," he said, and explained everything.

"And you haven't even told Betty? You shared so many dream adventures with her, and now she's adopted you."

"Betty and Kimberly, and Amber (the girl who stuck her tongue out) would probably just laugh or think I was silly."

"Like I did at first," said Linda, "I'm so sorry I didn't believe you, and so grateful that you saved my life anyway."

"I guess I could have told Mrs Bara," said Barry.

"I can't explain the coincidences with Kimberly and Amber, but with me and Mrs Bara, it's almost as if you had all those dreams to warn you of things that were going to happen to us, so that you could rescue Leeda and me, and maybe other damsels in distress," said Linda, "Thank you again. I don't know how I can repay you."

She kissed his cheek.

"It would be great to have a friend I can talk to more, each time another thing happens with someone else from my dreams of the Land of the Giants," said Barry.

"I'll be your friend forever," said Linda, "And you can talk to me about it anytime. I wonder why we were all giants in the dreams."

"I'd really like to tell Kimberly. I think she wants to be my girlfriend."

"From what you've told me, I think she already is," said Linda.

"But would that freak her out?" asked Barry.

"I don't know. I guess it's up to you as to whether or not you open up about that," said Linda.

"I don't know if I could. That's why it's so good to be able to tell you."

"It's funny that I'd like to tell Amber more than Kimberly, but she'd be far more likely to laugh in my face and spread it all around the school."

"I wouldn't trust that one either," said Linda.

They swapped telephone numbers and addresses and formed a close friendship.

One day Mrs Franzen handed back the students' science homework assignment papers and Barry's had a note written at the top of the first page:

"_This is not up to standard, Barry. Your mind seems to be elsewhere. Stay in after school on Thursday and I'll supervise you during detention,_

_Mrs Franzen."_

Barry remained in the classroom on the Thursday. When all the other students had left, Mrs Franzen poured two glasses of water and gave one to Barry.

"Drink this, and see if it refreshes your mind for more work," she said.

Barry drank his, and then she unlocked and opened a cupboard and took out what looked like a model spaceship in the shape of a cube.

"It's a great model," said Barry.

"But it works like a real ship," said Mrs Franzen, "We have sub-orbital flights at the moment, as our most advanced form of transport in the world. This is a tiny prototype for a spaceship capable of actually leaving earth's atmosphere altogether and travelling to other planets. I won't be able to get the funding to try building a full sized working space ship, until I've tested the prototype. Doing that will be the real assignment of your detention, Barry."

"How can I help?" asked Barry.

"You're going to fly it. The controls are simple," said Mrs Franzen.

"But I won't fit. It's like a toy," said Barry.

"Not for much longer," said Mrs Franzen.

Suddenly Barry shrank to tiny size.

"No wonder they were all giants in my dreams!" thought Barry, "But I never met a Mrs Franzen."

Then he recalled a dream, where he had been hearing about a giant named Franzen, someone whom Mark Wilson had gone off to help, with the aid of Fitzhugh and Valerie, and with the complete disapproval of Steve Burton. Barry now assumed that Franzen's wife would have looked just like his teacher, if he'd seen her in his dreams as well.

"I'm the only one who can make an antidote to that shrinking tablet I slipped into your drinking water," said Mrs Franzen, "So you'd better do as I say. I want you to fly the ship out into the National Park and land it there. I'll drive out and collect you. Now step in and I'll tell you how to operate it."

She put the ship on the window ledge, opened the classroom window, and gave Barry his instructions. Barry did as he was told, and blasted off at 3:30pm. He flew over Los Angeles at great speed and landed the ship in the National Park, checking that there were no people there on a weekday first. He managed to land the ship on the same table where he had met Mrs Bara. Soon he saw Mrs Franzen walking over to meet him.

"You've done well," she said, "My guidance system controls are a complete success in miniature."

She put Barry down on the grass.

"That's good. I guess you can restore my size now, so I can still do my homework for you in the future," said Barry.

"And have you tell everyone that you shrank and tested the ship and take the credit for it, not to mention informing the whole school that I've also invented shrinking pills? Oh no!" said Mrs Franzen, "You can just get lost in this park now. I've got work to get on with."

"But you said you'd make an antidote."

"No Barry. I said I was the only one who COULD make an antidote. I never said I would make one, nor that I would give it to you. Goodbye Barry."

With that she got up and walked away.


	3. Every Doll needs to be a Boy

The following day, Barry was sitting despondently on the grass, when he saw Mrs Bara walking through the National Park. The woman stopped just in front of him.

"Well look at you! Don't try to get away!" she said, and stepped closer and stooped down and snatched him up gently, "You'll make a perfect little doll for my daughter. I'll just have to make sure she keeps you in the cage I've just decided to go and buy."

She didn't seem to recognise his tiny face now. He was indeed her captive, but thought that this might well be a more pleasant outcome than being left in the National Park forever. He'd be well fed and never have to work. Mrs Bara took him home, stopping to hide him in her car and purchase a cage on the way. She later picked Teddy and Leeda up from school, took them home, and then went into Leeda's room and closed the door.

"I've got a surprise for you, Leeda," said Mrs Bara, "This little doll is alive and can talk to you, but don't tell Teddy or anyone else, and don't let him escape. Always lock him in the cage after you've finished playing dolls."

She handed Barry to Leeda, who held him up to her eyes to examine her new toy.

"Mommy! This is the boy who helped me out of the hole in the cave! Why is he small now?" asked Leeda.

"Let me see," said Mrs Bara, taking Barry and holding him up to her own eye, "So it is! You'd better tell me how all this is possible, Barry."

"I'll tell you more than that," said Barry, and explained of his dreams of the Land of the Giants, how Steve and Dan rescued her giant counterpart's children from a similar cave in, and how the coincidences had played out on earth after he'd woken up.

Finally, he detailed what his teacher Mrs Franzen had done to him.

"Well I guess I can't keep you here as a captive doll for Leeda now," said Mrs Bara, "I'm too grateful to you for already helping Leeda, when she was trapped at the bottom of that cave hole. It sounds like your best hope at finding an antidote is to return to the school undetected and keep an eye on your teacher. I'll drive you back there tomorrow. Would you mind being Leeda's doll just for one night?"

"Sure, Mrs Bara," said Barry.

He went into Leeda's dolls house and did everything she asked him to. Mrs Bara finally fed her children, put them to bed, and then let Barry sleep on a dolls house bed on Mrs Bara's own bedside table. The next day she took the children to school, and then smuggled Barry to the edge of his own school grounds, wished him all the best and farewelled him.

He waited until school was over, and then decided to head for the classroom. Making his way through the gardens, he stopped when he heard footsteps and voices on the path. Peeking out, he looked up and saw Betty talking to Mrs Franzen.

"I'm worried now," said Betty, "Barry didn't come home yesterday, and I haven't seen him all day today."

"I haven't seen him today either," said Mrs Franzen truthfully, "I don't know where he could have gotten to now. I have noticed that his science results have been lower than his aptitude implies he could achieve. His mind seems to be wandering from his work a lot of the time. I don't know if the other teachers have thought the same thing. Could there be somewhere he might have gone?"

"The cheek of it!" thought Barry, debating in his mind whether he would be better off to step out and let both of them see him or to remain hidden from both.

By the time he decided that Betty could probably protect him from being exiled by Mrs Franzen again, the two had walked out of his reach, like relative sized giants from his dreams. Betty walked out of the school and Mrs Franzen soon went home too. The place was empty. Barry decided to cross the playground and find somewhere to settle down for the night, and hopefully some food scraps, which might constitute a full meal to him. The next day he could try searching Mrs Franzen's classroom for any hint of an enlargement pill.

To his surprise, Amber came walking across the playground in her physical education clothing. She saw Barry and snatched him up.

"Hi, Amber, it's me, Barry. I shrank," he said.

"Well little Barry, it's a pity you're going to have such a short life!" she teased, and stuck her tongue out again.

It was exactly what her giant counterpart had said in the dream. She detoured away from her original direction, took him out into the gardens and grounds, and sat down on the grass at the edge of a garden bed.

"I was going to take a shower after playing basketball with Kimberly," said Amber, "I'll be back to bring about your fate shortly."

She put Barry on a very thick log. To attempt to climb off it would result in a fatal fall.

"What fate is it going to be?" asked Barry.

"Let's just say one person's fate is another person's afternoon tea," said Amber, licking her lips.

"Are you going to eat me?" asked Barry.

Amber picked him up and held him right in front of her mouth. She put her tongue right out and tasted his face, neck and shoulders.

"I'll have less room for dinner when I get home tonight," she giggled, and left him on the log.

When she was almost out of sight, she suddenly froze in mid stride. Barry remembered the way the two time travelling false naval commanders had been able to freeze time. Yet they weren't here. He found that he could still move. Then a woman behind the log stepped over it and sat down beside Barry. She was holding a small device that looked like a walkie talkie or portable pocket radio. Then she turned some dial on it, and Barry saw both the woman and the device shrink to his own proportionate size.

"Now we can talk at the same level," said the woman, "I'm Berna. I've been observing things on this planet of yours for a while."

"I'm Barry. Did you stop time for everyone else?" asked Barry.

"Yes, with this Space Time Manipulator or STM for short," said Berna.

She looked just like the woman he'd seen arguing with Steve and Dan, just before the Spindrift took off. In fact, since that had been real, not part of the dream he'd had in flight, she must have been that same woman. She was not a counterpart of some dream giant, but someone he'd actually seen before.

"I think I saw you at Los Angeles Airport months ago, just before I flew to London," said Barry.

"You remember that!" she said, "I was concentrating on the adult passengers that day."

"You're wearing the same clothes."

"So tell me how you got into this situation of being so small. Do you have an STM too?"

"No," he said, and explained everything.

"Well thank you Barry. That fills in the gaps," said Berna, and returned to normal size and placed her STM on the log beside her, "Your fellow student Amber looks graceful frozen in that position. I'm going to start time up for the rest of the universe again now. It's actually our relative time start that's changed. I can't really stop time for the whole universe. It just seemed the best way of looking at things when we first started talking. I'll be gone by the time Amber returns to collect you. She won't even know I've been here."

Barry had been observing Berna's use of the STM. The one thing he'd learned was that holding it while pressing a particular button would restore size. He threw one arm around the STM and pressed the button. He returned to full size.

"I'm sorry, Barry, I can't allow that. My presence here is the result of coming from another time. I can't let it alter the events of this time. You'll have to return to tiny size."

Barry stood up and backed away, pointing the STM at her. Yet he did not know how to operate any of its other functions. Pressing the same button again would only shrink him. Berna moved in and snatched the STM back from him. She reduced his size again and placed him on the log.

"But you know what she's going to do to me!" said Barry.

"It's not my primary concern. I can't allow anything to change time," said Berna.

"If you were there just before I took off in Spindrift and had all those dreams, maybe you already changed time and caused this to happen."

"Nice try," she laughed, "But it doesn't work like that. I had nothing to do with your being here. I can't tell you why I was at the Airport that day, and I can't restore your size. You have to go through with everything you're meant to face."

"But she's going to eat me!"

"It's not so bad at your size," said Berna, "See for yourself. It'll help you prepare."

Berna picked him up, sat on the log and slid him slowly over her lower lip and onto her tongue and let him lie there. She took a small gulp and let him slide into the top of her throat. He wondered how her eating him would prevent time from being altered. Then she coughed him back up and out of her mouth.

"That wasn't so bad, was it?" she asked.

It actually felt pleasant enough, but Barry knew the implications of letting Amber go ahead with her afternoon tea plans.

"I have to go now, Barry. I'll just restart time, relatively speaking, and then get out of sight."

Barry saw Amber continue moving towards the school building again, and soon saw her coming back out to collect him. Amber walked over and sat on the log and picked him up.

She clutched him gently and dangled him over her mouth.

"You're going to die, little shrunken Barry," she laughed.

Kimberly stepped into view behind Amber, put her arm around Amber's neck and began to restrict her breathing.

"Let him go, or I'll choke you, if it's the only way to save him!" said Kimberly.

Amber softened her grip on Barry and let him rest on her shoulder. Kimberly released her grip on Amber, having the advantage of being the older girl, and gently took Barry in her own hand.

"That's the last time I want to play basketball with you," said Kimberly.

"I'll get you, little Barry. I'll get you good!" said Amber and stormed out of the school and went home.

"Oh Kimberly, you saved me, as a giant. There's things I've wanted to tell you for so long," said Barry.

He explained the whole story to her.

She took him home in her school bag and then put him on the table in her room.

"It's an amazing story," said Kimberly.

"I'm so glad you know everything," said Barry, "Now you really are my giant girlfriend."


	4. North by LASTONES

"I'm glad you're safe, Barry, and I did think of you as my boyfriend, but that was when you were normal sized. I don't know how to make Mrs Franzen change you back. Only an adult would stand a chance of doing that. Whatever my dream counterpart thought of you, which might have just been kindness and sympathy, I don't have any romantic feelings for a boy your size. I will try to help you though. Is there any adult you'd like me to call, like your foster Mom?"

Not Betty, not just yet, thought Barry.

Instead he gave her the number of Linda the model.

Kimberly rang Linda and said, "I'm calling on behalf of your friend Barry Lockeridge. He needs your help, but to fully appreciate it, you'd have to come and see for yourself."

Linda met Kimberly in the park after school the next day, and agreed to take Barry off her hands.

"Of course I can take you back to Betty," said Linda, "But I guess you wanted me to help break the news to her, since I already know a lot more than her, about the giant dreams you shared with me and so on."

"Yes, it would be a big help, thank you. But also, I was going to ask you for something that Kimberly wouldn't do. We never got to kiss each other before I shrank, and I think your giant kisses would be nicer anyway. So I was hoping you might be able to give me just a few."

"I'll give you a whole night's worth," said Linda, and took him home and kissed him over and over.

He snuggled against her shoulder and later her neck or cheek at various times while they slept the night off.

"Thank you so much," he said the next morning, "This is the first good thing to come out of my shrinking."

"Well it's not just that you saved me. You are very cute at that size… which brings me to one more bit of advice I might have for you. Every time you've talked about your life, I've sensed you talking with more feeling for Betty than for Kimberly. Do you think maybe you're in love with her?"

"I was in the dreams, especially remembering how she said she'd take me home with her just before I fell asleep," said Barry.

"Then you really should tell her."

"She'd think it was weird."

"She'll think that dreams of giants, coincidental counterparts and being shrunken is all pretty weird too, and you'll need her help to force Mrs Franzen to make an antidote to your size."

"I wonder if Berna knew that Kimberly would save me from Amber."

"Maybe. But concentrate on Betty. I'll take you back today."

She rang Betty and introduced herself and said that she knew what had become of Betty's missing foster son Barry, checked that Betty would not be off on a flight that would now need a replacement stewardess, and headed over to her place.

Betty was astounded as Barry and Linda shared all of the facts of the stories, leaving out any of Barry's emotional entanglements with Kimberly or Linda or Betty herself, at least until Betty had thanked and farewelled Linda. The model promised to stay in touch, as Betty might well need help to outwit Mrs Franzen.

"I've a good mind to spank this Amber!" said Betty, as Barry lay on the pillow beside her that night, "Fancy wanting to eat you! Who does she think she is?"

Barry suddenly realised that telling her something even stranger would be not that much stranger now, than telling her he loved her.

"It would have been much nicer if it was your mouth, especially if you didn't actually swallow me whole any more than Berna did," said Barry, "I've always liked the way your tongue sparkles."

"Really?"

"Yes, I'd love to climb into your mouth and stay the night."

"Are you sure you can be careful not to fall down my throat."

"You'll be lying down. It won't be vertical. You can open your mouth to let me climb out in the morning, before you sit up again."

"Alright Barry, just for you," she said.

She opened her mouth in front of him, giving him the most point blank view of her tongue that he'd ever seen. Barry climbed carefully onto it and settled himself down against the moist mattress for the night.

Having gone to bed at 8pm, they awoke at 1am and Betty had an idea. At her suggestion, they decided to go to the school in the middle of the night. It took Barry some time to open the lock of the door at the front of the school building. Once they were in, they used his penlight torch (which had not been shrunken, and was hence still the right size for Betty to carry) to creep through the corridors unseen and locate Mrs Franzen's classroom. They began using Barry's tiny hands to open every lock they could find in search of any clue as to how to restore Barry's size.

Suddenly they were surprised by a woman with a gun.

"I'm Dr North," she said, "It's not my real name, but the one you can use. I was planning to blow this school up from the outside tonight, by planting small bombs all around it. I'm the head of L.A.S.T.O.N.E.S. (Lobbyists Against Space Travel, Opposing New Enterprise Sternly). We've been spying on scientists for years, and learned of Mrs Franzen's attempts to advance space travel. I'm afraid you'll have to go up with the school now. You've seen too much. When I saw the front door open, I had thought to alter my plans upon gaining unexpected entry."

"That was us," said Betty, "We're against Mrs Franzen too."

"How can I be certain to believe you?" asked Dr North.

Barry recalled another adventure he'd only heard about from the others in his dreams, of a Dr North alias Greer, who had planned to blow up the giant city. A rare and temporary alliance between Steve Burton and S.I.D. Inspector Kobick had prevented her efforts and saved the city.

"She shrank Barry here. He's living proof that she's bad news. We could help each other," said Betty, "Barry could sabotage her miniature spaceship prototype at your instruction, so that it would malfunction and self destruct the next time she tries using it to adapt designs for a full sized model. She'd give up willingly then, thinking the project a failure. If you blow the school up, she'll just start over somewhere else. In return, you could help us force her to restore Barry's size."

"I guess it's better for all of us," said Dr North, "Alright, we'll ambush her before school starts in the morning. I'll just relock the front door from the inside, so nobody expects us. You can explain me as a scientist you turned to for help to restore Barry's size, and she need never tell anyone else who I am, for fear of being exposed herself."

When Mrs Franzen arrived, Betty stepped out from behind the classroom door at 8am, and recreated the headlock manoeuvre (that Barry had described Kimberly as having used on Amber). Dr North slipped a smaller version of one of her bombs into Mrs Franzen's shirt pocket.

"This is not as large as the ones I usually use," said Dr North, "But it will blow your heart out without doing any damage to the concerned irate foster mother holding you… unless you restore her boy to normal size."

"The antidote pill's in my handbag," said Mrs Franzen, and waited while Dr North fed it to Barry.

Barry returned to full size. Betty fetched his physical education clothes from his locker, and he wore them for the rest of the day, with Mrs Franzen's full permission. His absence was explained as "a mishap in the National Park", and the sabotage he had performed on her miniature space ship achieved Dr North's desired result in due course. She abandoned her space travel research, and hence had no further need to shrink anyone.

Amber was surprised to learn of Barry's return to normal size and wondered if she should chance an alliance with Mrs Franzen, so that Barry might be shrunken and placed at Amber's mercy again. Mrs Franzen could never persuade Barry to accept a drink from her again, but Amber might somehow pull it off.

One night a few weeks later, Barry and Betty were discussing all of the events from their first shared Spindrift flight until present day.

"I'm surprised you didn't come to me first about all this," said Betty.

"You weren't even a giant in the dreams, but you were my favourite giant in real life," said Barry, "I think that's why I was so nervous that I told you about it last of all."

"Why was I your favourite?"

"Because I love you, Betty."

"Then I don't think you should stay with me anymore," said Betty, "I actually talked to Linda and she said she would take you in if you needed somewhere else, with me being on flights so often. It turns out we have another reason to accept."

"I guess I shouldn't have told you," said Barry, "Now I'll miss having you as my foster Mom as well."

"It's not that. I'm not that much older than you. You'll be an adult around the time I'm 30. I can still be your girlfriend now. I'd like to. That's why I can't be your foster Mom anymore. It was a lot to process that night I first knew you were tiny, but _you've_ _begun to grow on me_."


End file.
